Turkish president’s comments come amid tensions with Stockholm and threaten to derail the alliance’s hopes of expanding to 32 countries
Turkey and Hungary remain the only members to have failed to ratify the two bids by votes in parliament.But Erdoğan has dug in his heels heading into a tightly contested 14 May election in which he is trying to energise his conservative and nationalist support base.
He drew a clear distinction on Sunday between the positions taken by Sweden and Finland in the past few months. Sweden has approved a constitutional amendment that enables it to enact tougher anti-terror laws demanded by Ankara. But Ankara reacted with fury to a decision by the Swedish police to allow a protest at which a far-right extremist burned a copy of the Qur’an outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm earlier this month.